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Dinosaur demise didn't spur evolution

MALCOLM RITTER

Associated Press

Latest comment posted at 1:49 PM EDT 28/03/07

Study challenges theory that new species – including mammals – burst into existence after cataclysm ...Read the full article

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  1. Where's the Beef from London, Canada writes: No doubt the god-squaders will now use this as another example of how flawed the theory of evolution is, ignoring all of the scientific understanding garnered by this study and also ignoring the fact that this is a prime example of how science works to continually correct and refine our understanding of the natural world. Of course why would we do all this when we could just read the bible, eh?
  2. Mr Fijne from Calgary, Canada writes: Well all this will come to an end by 2100 if I read the media, listen to the Goreacle and the Suzuki... unless our generation changes it all. Feels better already no?
  3. The Religious Left from Canada writes:
    I'll start this one off:
    If all these high-falluin' scientists is so smart sayin' we's evolved from monkeys. How come there's still monkeys?
  4. Mark H from Columbus, IN, United States writes: The first comment was the angry anti-religion guy this time. Funny thing is, there usually aren't any 'god-squaders' on here denying evolution in the first place. Usually it's just a bunch of angry people with authority issues commenting on these stories, railing on and on about the dangers of religion. Whatever gets you through the day, I suppose.
  5. Where's the Beef from London, Canada writes: Very funny Religious Left, really, but just in case some don't get the joke, no one ever said we evolved from monkeys, the theory is that we and monkeys had common ancestors. I like your style.
  6. Hugh McNeil from toronto, Canada writes: Interesting findings. I'm gathering the reason that our ancestors lines didn't have the wild flurry of expected new species is that as our lines have proven themselves over time, our ancestors were already well established in their respective niches. It is possible that entrenched species have little to gain by testing new niches. Examples: is it really a good idea for horses to try eating voles; should small cats become water feeders; how does a dog size mammal step into the shoes of a diplodicus...

    The lines that have become extinct have done so because, I gather, the species that existed at the time were not as well entrenched in a niche, and therefore had more to gain by testing new boundaries, or were actually forced to compete in a variety of niches.

    Is it possible to look at the modern retail environment to glean information on this type of evolution?
  7. John Wood from Calgary, Canada writes: Dear Where’s the Beef,

    Maybe we should leave this sleeping dinosaur lie and not spur on the inevitable god talk. By Zeus who plays with thunder, if we were just to wait &8216;till Morn next dons her saffron robe and spreads her rosy fingers o&8217;er the sky; we would, by then, have moved on to a new science article anyway.
  8. Mark Shore from Ottawa, Canada writes: An alternative way to look at the new data is that carnivorous dinosaurs started selectively breeding small tasty mammals as hors d'oeuvres sometime in the mid-Cretaceous. After all, who wouldn't get bored with Triceratops steak, night after night?
  9. Geriatric Personage from East Coast, Canada writes: God decreed and 'planted' what has been found. Whatever is found is part of his almighty will. Please be content and pray for doubting his greatness.
  10. Jim Cohoon from Chilliwack, Canada writes: For those who see no necessary or inherent contradiction between God and science two supportive quotes. Thomas Paine (Age of Reason, 1794): 'We can know God only through his works.... The principles of science lead to this knowledge; for the Creator of man is the Creator of science; and it is through that medium that man can see God.' Charles Darwin (Origin of Species, 1859): 'There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one ...' If there is a danger presented by science, it is not in its pursuit of God's works through reason and knowledge, but its replacement by 'scientism', which (in the words of Thomas Nagel): 'puts one form of understanding in charge of the universe' with the result that (in the words of Richard Dawkins): 'the ecological niche that was filled by religion is now filled by science'. Science as science is wonderful; science as religion is dreadful.
  11. Andrew Pearson from Montreal, Canada writes: Jim Cohoon - Excellent post!
  12. Michael Tripper from Vancouver, Canada writes: wouldn't it be great if religious loons could look at the evidence and amend their idiotic ideas the same way normal people and scientists do?

    cohoon, Darwins god was the god of nature and had nothing to do with your illusions. It was another term for the universe itself for darwin.

    Quoting Paine, man that's dangerous cuz he was totally against everything religion represents...but I'm sure I can take quotes out of context and prove anything.

    Thomas Paine - The Age of Reason, In his own words

    'I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.'

    http://tinyurl.com/yokv3l

    The fopunders were deists and would haved laughed creationism out of the room.
  13. Eric of Windsor from Windsor, Canada writes: You see that is how things get twisted. God did not say 'We can know God only through his works....The principles of science lead to this knowledge'. He actually said we only know Him through the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit is someone you must ask God for...... therefore you must understand who God is and believe in Him first before you can recieve from Him. This 'study' proves the wishy washy theory of evolution. It is continually altering the standing theory of someone else with new and 'up to date theories' from another group which over rides someone elses original theory. I guess this is the best proven form of evolution, the evolution of the theory of evolution in the mind of man. At least Gods message in the Bible is still and always will be the same. 'One Way'
  14. Dominik B from Canada writes: So really, God created the theory of Evolution for us to discover. There. Everybody is happy now, or are we...
  15. Dominik B from Canada writes: It's like that puzzle that took over a century to solve. Pretty nasty one God, but we figured it out. Keep em coming though.
  16. The Religious Left from Canada writes: Eric of Windsor. From one Christian to another, I have an honest question for you about evolution/creation: Why do you care?

    Why is a strict interpretation of Genesis important to your personal faith?
  17. James Cyr from Balmertown Ontario, Canada writes: I thought this had been known for quite some time. Mammals had been around for quite awhile before the dinosaurs became extinct. They came into their own after the dinosaur extinction event at the end of the Cretaceous period, some 65 million years ago. After that, they continued to flourish.
  18. Some Guy from Canada writes: Jim Terrets from Vancouver, it wasn't science which got the Earth-Sun wrong, it was religious dogma. Copernicus published posthumously and the church imprisoned Gallileo for teaching exactly the same thing. The Hellenistic Greeks were closing in on the truth of this question 200 years ago. Look up Ariastarchus and Erastosthenes to see how far they had come, good estimate of the diameter of the Earth and the distance to and size of the moon. The subsequent calculation of the distance to the sun put it a factor of 10 too close and a factor of 10 too small but the numbers were still boggling. This progress was stultified for 1500 years by religious dogma and a distinct decline in science. We need to avoid another such decline if we are to understand the end of the dinosaurs and the conditions around the rise of birds and mammals.
  19. Some Guy from Canada writes: 'The Hellenistic Greeks were closing in on the truth of this question 200 years ago. Oops, typo, make that 2000 years ago.
  20. John Williams from Ajax, Canada writes: Obviously, Harper knows he has to keep his extremist religious motivations hidden, otherwise he will never get a majority. Once they get that majority, their plan is to slowly re-engineer the public, and move it more in their direction, like in the US.

    The first way to do that, is to get Evolution out of the schools, and get religion and Creationism into the schools.

    Its a long-term project, and they know it. This is why religion must be fought in the street to keep it out of politics, and out of the schools.

    The scientists who are hiding and not educating the public about how Evolution works are negligent. Its time for the scientific educators to step up and explain how Evolution works to the public.
  21. Gaston Paquette from Planet earth, Canada writes: He said ' The demise of the dinosaurs may have affected mammal evolution by influencing characteristics such as body size rather than boosting the number of new species created. Such changes would not be picked up by the new study' he noted.

    So where is the news ? You took how long to come to this,obvious,conclusion ?
    Sheesh! No wonder so called scientists get a bad rap .
    Yea, and bread cast upon the water generally sinks .
  22. F/A josquin from van, Canada writes: To all you god-loving fellows who claim to be scientists or who claim to have specific scientific knowledge that proves real science wrong, and who fill these blogs with buzz-word nonsense.

    Please gentlemen, take your fake facts elsewhere, or, better yet drop them completely. There is no argument, scientifically based, that will prove the existence of your god, none, period, no matter how much you try.
  23. John McCaffery from Warragul, Australia writes: In response to F/A josquin – I think you are wrong - the evidence is clearly on the side of an Almighty loving God &8211; there is no doubt about that &8211; your ability to write down a comment is even evidence. The only obstacle we seem to have is man&8217;s pride closing the mind. The day man can manufacture a reproducing house fly is the day I will be convinced he has half a clue of what is going on. I like the story of God competing with man to create &8211; God starts off and creates an animal from dirt &8211; man has his turn - reaching down to get some dirt and God says &8211; get your own dirt!
    Give us a break &8211; man creates nothing we simply attempt to imitate our Creator in the things we do &8211; that is wonderful &8211; but please let us get off our weenie horse.
  24. Scenic Sask! from Canada writes: John Williams from Ajax - SO! This is 'Harper's Secret Agenda!'

    Sad to see that the non-religious (as I am) may be prone to wear blinders that shut out the light. THERE IS NO SECRET AGENDA! That was just the losing advertising campaign of the LOSING Liberals in the last election. A scare tactic to make you worry. Obviously it worked on you, but not on enough smart Canadian voters!
  25. Brad Reddekopp from Hazelton, Canada writes: John McCaffery, if you think the evidence supports 'an Almighty loving God', you clearly are not paying attention. The problem of evil / problem of pain is one which no theistic apologist has adequately addressed except, perhaps, for those who are willing compromise on either God's omnipotence or his omnibenevolence.

    The fact that humans are not yet creating artificial reproducing organisms is no kind of argument for or against God. Neither is the fact that I can do what I do.
  26. John McCaffery from Warragul, Australia writes: Brad Reddekopp - I disagree. God clearly created us with a freewill - it defines love the ability to think and choose what is right - we can choose His will or our will. The evil in this world is man’s choosing. God has blessed this world with an abundance of food and resources for all people on this earth to live happily and healthy - given us an intellect to discover and make our world a better place; however, we make choices that make this improbable. No point blaming God - ignoring or dishonouring God only makes our world worse.
  27. james cyr from Balmertown, Ontario, Canada writes: The so-called Dark Ages (Middle Ages, from roughly 1100 AD to 1600 AD) were the result of a merge between Church and state. This must never happen again.
  28. Brad Reddekopp from Hazelton, Canada writes: John McCaffery, the freewill defense simply doesn't work. If God is wholly good, all-powerful and all-knowing, there is no justification for his bringing into being a universe that he knows will produce evil.

    For one thing, it is logically possible to for there to be morally perfect beings which have free will but which, being morally perfect, always choose to do good. One example of such a being, if it existed, would be God. So, why would a wholly good and all-powerful being create beings that it knows are morally imperfect? It makes no sense.

    If God exists, then either the universe is set up according to his will or it is not. If it is not, then he is not omnipotent. If it is, then he has set it up in such a way that there is evil and unearned distress (eg. babies have done nothing to deserve starving to death). So, if God is omnipotent, he does bear ultimate responsibility for what comes of his creation (that is, he can justifiably be blamed for everything).

    How could the omnipotent and omniscient creator fail to know the consequences of creating free will? He couldn't! So, knowing the consequences, he went ahead and did it anyway. Does the principle of personal responsibility for one's choices apply to everyone except God?
  29. John McCaffery from Warragul, Australia writes: Thanks Brad, but I think you might be missing an important point about freewill - it is all about love. For example, can a parent demand that its children love them? Maybe, but then could it be called love? If we were programmed to be kind, there would be no such thing as love - it would be called instinct. If there were no people in need - will there be any chance of choosing to reach out and help? One has to be able to choose to display love - it is not just a feeling that is more like lust. Clearly it is why we have intellect - it is what separates us from the animals - we are in God’s image. By the way, I believe God obviously has freewill but always does what is perfect and that includes creating us and loving us enough to give us our own choices - even if we make mistakes He has taken care of that through His Son. It is also why in history when man attempts to disconnect people from God, either by state or religion, the next step is to remove our God given choice.
  30. Ex Drone from Ottawa, Canada writes: The headline for this article is poorly worded; the evolutionary process is ever-present and ongoing. As well, the study is not necessarily all that surprising. It observes that, although mammalian diversity 'generally rose rapidly immediately after the K/T boundary' (i.e., the cretaceous/tertiary boundary extinction event 65 million years ago) as a result of 'a massively elevated rate of speciation,' most of the diversifications did not result in extant lineages (i.e., the ones that exist today). That is, the mammals that took advantage of the extinction of the non-avian dinosaurs radiated wildly but did not become the dominant lineages. Instead, the extant lineages evolved later and then took over.
  31. Aumharan G from Durham Region, Ontario, Canada writes: John Williams from Ajax, Canada writes: Its amazing to see even in this thread, how some religious folk think that 'argument by design' proves God exists! The fact is that evolution shows exactly how life evolved, and this proves God does NOT exist as the Designer of Nature.

    I'm with you on that.

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